Happy Mondays Texts

By racket racket

Photographer Brian Sweeney alongside graphic artist Scott King created these text-ualisations of Happy Mondays photographs for an exhibition in 2005.

We think they’re definitely worthy of a wider audience having only been exhibited once, seven years ago. The texts conjure up extremely humorous images of the iconic Manchester band in a variety of situations during the tour.

Here’s what Brian, who runs Glasgow pop-up gallery Repositioned and sometimes even takes photographs, said about the texts:

This was the 1999 Mondays tour, I believe, when the band had to pay a massive tax bill. Me and the legendary Jack Barron got sent to cover the tour – I was asked to exhibit the photography in 2005 and as I’d just returned from living in Iceland and most of my negatives/transparencies were still in various agencies and offices in London, I didnt have time to get everything sent up. So I decided to write texts using my memories of certain individual shots.

After a discussion with award winning graphic artist Scott King (ID magazine, SleazeNation, CRASH! etc) who loved the idea, we decided that he should arrange the texts and I would then print onto high-end photographic stock.

We got a mention in the News of the World as art hoaxsters! I think the headline was “Happy Mondays photographer is a Charlatan” or something like that! Genius.

Happy Mondays Texts

Happy Mondays Texts

Happy Mondays Texts

Happy Mondays Texts

Happy Mondays Texts

Happy Mondays Texts

Happy Mondays Texts

Happy Mondays Texts

Happy Mondays Texts

Happy Mondays Texts Credits

If you’re a Mondays fan have a look at this Information Technology documentary about Factory Records on the run up to the release of the band’s Bummed LP.

3 Comments

  1. Pingback: Madchester: The Sound of the North

  2. Pingback: The Durutti Column

  3. Pingback: Icelandic Stadia

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.